Case Number 03291: Small Claims Court

In Praise Of Love

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All Rise...

The Charge

When I think about something, I'm really thinking of something else. When
I look at a landscape, I am not actually thinking about it. I am comparing it to
other landscapes I have seen before.

The Case

A young man named Edgar is working on a "project" of sorts. Its
exact identity is as confusing as his research process. His premise at least is
definite—it involves couples and the four stages of love: initial meeting,
physical passion, quarrels ending in separation, and reconciliation—but
whether it will be a book or cantata or play is never quite clear. He seeks
guidance from his father, a famous art dealer, but the old man cannot seem to
get beyond the basic arguments about art and history. He begins the process of
"casting" his project by interviewing various people, both
professional performers and everyday individuals, about their understanding of
love: both the emotional (of the heart) and metaphysical (of the head). He runs
into a young woman on the street that he is sure he has met before. He wants to
feature her in his project. She constantly avoids him. They do seem to get
closer, but then he loses touch with her. Eventually she commits suicide and
leaves him a few personal belongings, including a book that may be a hint as to
when and where they met before. Apparently, two years earlier while researching
a project on the French Resistance during World War II, Edgar met the young
woman. In flashbacks, we see that she was the secretary for an old couple trying
to sell their story to Steven Spielberg in Hollywood.

In Praise of Love is a work of staggering genius. It is also a
self-indulgent exercise in mental masturbation. It's a moving and visually
stunning film of depth and soul. It is also a disjointed and meandering mess
that can never quite get its valid points across clearly. It's beautiful and
it's embarrassing, philosophical as well as rote and fundamentalist. While it is
clearly not the greatest work of legendary French new wave genius Jean-Luc
Godard (whose credits are too numerous and importance in film too great to
attempt to explain in a single DVD review), it does represent a return to form
for the once formidable cinematic force of nature. Those unfamiliar with his
work should seek out the many classics of his oeuvre post-haste (Breathless, Contempt, and Alphaville to name a
few) to see why so many clamor about him. But the uninitiated should perhaps
steer clear of this arcane, artistic triumph that mixes the ethos of love with
visually stunning imagery and a clear anti-American/Hollywood sentiment. This is
just not a movie for the first timer. It's not that Godard's methods are totally
inaccessible. Indeed, much of the film is painfully obvious. But just like
tossing a neophyte into David Lynch's Eraserhead unprepared, someone
approaching In Praise of Love without at least some background in
Godard's method and ideology will feel lost and unimpressed. That is because for
most of its running time, In Praise of Love functions as a jigsaw puzzle,
an intricate combination of treatise, tease, and tone poem that uses the
backdrop of Paris (Godard once again shooting in the city after a long absence)
and its mostly shadowed inhabitants as pawns in an enormous examination of
emotion. But the epiphanies are hidden in strange scene juxtapositions, missing
scene sections, overlapping dialogue/narrative strings, and long dramatic pauses
of pristine lushness.

As Godard is known for his experiments in pushing the boundaries of the
cinematic art, a little overindulgence can be expected. But there are some
aspects of In Praise of Love that will leave even those most seasoned
convert rubbing their temples to reduce the irritating throb of confusion. One
has to assume that the lack of a full English translation for the film is
Godard's intention (judging how much he hates Americans, it's not much of
an inference) and the resulting incompleteness leaves huge gaps in dialogue that
a non-French speaking audience will never understand. It's like the in-joke
about immigrants talking about you behind your back as you stand in line at
their convenience store. Godard obviously has punches to pull and he really
yanks them back quite harshly. He's also not afraid to be vague and repetitious,
using title cards and bits of music to re-emphasize issues over and over again
(a series of cards that say—and this is a rough translation—"in
consideration of…love" are flashed more often than the multiplication
tables in a third grade math class) while failing to connect them to anything
that remotely resembles what he wants to discuss. This manner of misdirection
may just be the point, but it leaves a viewer feeling bitter and unaccompanied,
as if they stumbled onto a play that they have neither the native tongue nor the
necessary mental skills to understand. Idealistic rhetoric is bantered about in
heavy-handed doses and those famous French hating allies from across the
Atlantic take a definitely moralistic beating at the hands of the characters in
this film. Steven Spielberg and, indirectly, his treatment of the Holocaust are
leveled with one of the most mean spirited and spurious denouncements
ever in a motion picture.

And yet, In Praise of Love is a sparkling diamond, a movie that
contrasts crass commentary with the subtle black and white beauty (and
eventually hyper-digital colorization) of France to make a universal point about
love, life, history, and art. With a visual sense reminiscent of Woody Allen
circa Manhattan and Stardust
Memories, Godard's Paris in In Praise of Love is a world of hazy
lights and lazy shadows, of the ancient edifices being meshed with the
technology of modern man to form a new version of the old architectural
traditions. Just as the film champions history, this use of monochrome shows
that pure art is best derived from simple, straightforward visual dramatics.
When memories (or "archives" as they are title carded) are presented,
they are seen in bright near-fluorescent digital video images that recall the
paintings of the old masters combined with the unreality and incompleteness of
recollection. Godard wants it known that the opening exercise in shadow and
light represents the real world, the indecipherable structure of meetings,
greetings, lamentations, and pontifications. When we move into the times of
yore, we become lost in the mind's eye, an unreliable recorder of events that
adds undue importance to the trivial and over-romanticizes the simplest things.
Indeed, the main character's search for "adulthood," that missing
sense of personal resonance between childhood and old age, can be seen as a
battle between the eras, a war of the hues and the grays. While it can meander
off into mean-spirited vitriolic attacks (which have some validity buried in
their brutal truths) and be jagged for juxtaposition's sake, In Praise of
Love is still a brave, bold statement that will satisfy the cinematic urges
as it completely confuses your linear logic leanings. Synapses may misfire, but
they will do so in visual bliss.

New Yorker Films does a tremendous job with the sound and visual
presentation of this oddly evocative minor masterwork. In Praise of Love,
as stated before, is shot in 35mm black and white with extensive lens filtering
and lighting risks, as well as highly oversaturated digital video. Both mediums
can cause a transfer torment for the manufacturer of DVD, but the concerned
cinefiles at the company have made sure that Godard's daring vision is preserved
in as pristine a print as they can provide digitally. In Praise of Love,
utilizing an anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen image, is exquisite. Without the
narrative turmoil, this would still be a brilliant work of visual art captured
perfectly by New Yorker. In the aural arena, Godard also uses sonic tricks here,
and the Dolby Digital 2.0 captures them nicely, from the overlapping voices to
subtle shifts in underscoring. There are not many film specific bonuses here,
just a trailer and a basic scene selection insert. But for those interested in
the history of other films offered by New Yorker, there is a nice section
dedicated to the company itself included.

Godard once stated "a story should have a beginning, a middle and an
end…but not necessarily in that order." He also said "one of the
most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms
jumbled together." In Praise of Love, by these standards, is pure
Jean-Luc. It is a chaotic, muddled movie with its plot components thrown to the
four winds of the muses like the characters' long sought after elements of love.
And it is indeed art: irritating, fascinating, and ultimately satisfying
art.